Pichushkin will also have to undergo psychiatric treatment at the prison. Previously, experts at Russia's main psychiatric clinic had found Pichushkin sane.

A jury found Pichushkin guilty on Wednesday after deliberating slightly more than two hours.

Pichushkin said Thursday he had killed 60 people and that three attempts had failed. However, prosecutors could only find evidence for 48 murders. The jury also found Pichushkin guilty of three attempted murders.

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Most of Pichushkin's victims were killed in the sprawling Bittsa Park in southern Moscow from 2001 until his arrest in 2006.

Prosecutors said Pichushkin lured his victims - many of them homeless, alcoholic and elderly - by promising them vodka if they would join him in mourning the death of his dog.

They said he killed 11 people in 2001, including six in one month. He killed most of his victims by throwing them into a sewage pit after they were drunk, and in a few cases strangled or hit them in the head, prosecutors said.

Beginning in 2005, he began to kill with "particular cruelty," hitting his intoxicated victims multiple times in the head with a hammer, then sticking an unfinished bottle of vodka into their shattered skulls, prosecutors said. He also no longer tried to conceal the bodies.

The country's most notorious serial killer was Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted in 1992 of killing 52 children and young women in 12 years.